Growth & Jobs | Employment boost - Young Jamaicans to benefit from training and work experience

Young people in urban and rural communities across the island are to benefit from valuable training and work experience aimed at strengthening their opportunities for employment.

This will be facilitated under three memoranda of understanding signed by the Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica with three private sector entities on Thursday at the Terra Nova Hotel in St Andrew.

The entities are Jamaica Producers Group, Bureau of Standards Jamaica, and GraceKennedy Limited.

The initiative is part of the Advance Programme funded by the United States Agency for International Development and FHI360.

TECHNICAL DEGREE PROGRAMMES

Under the programme, community colleges will benefit from support to offer two-to three-year technical degree programmes to disadvantaged youth as a viable path towards employment.

Areas of training include agri-business, the creative industries, and health and tourism wellness.

Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Senator Pearnel Charles Jr welcomed the collaboration among the partners.

He noted that the opportunities presented by the signing of the agreements would not only enable numerous disadvantaged Jamaican youth to access higher education, but also training in the workplace.

“The signing of the MoUs really represents the strategic collaboration among all of the stakeholders. From here, what (the community colleges) are supposed to be doing is going through the interviews based on those students who have applied to identify persons who are going to be selected to advance towards the associate and bachelor’s [degree] programmes that they are offering in the specific categories,” he noted.

The Advance Programme is also benefiting young people in Honduras and Guatemala.

For the purpose of the programme, disadvantaged youth refers to populations in both rural and urban areas; youth living in communities with high crime or violence; indigenous people; and those marginalised due to ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.